It's
been suggested that Chivalry-Now is the male version
of feminism.
The idea certainly has merit. Like feminism,
we seek to improve life for everyone by dealing with gender-related
issues. We merely approach from opposite sides of the spectrum.
Admitting such similarities might raise
hackles on people who hold negative views of feminism. To clarify
this, the feminism I refer to is the one that supports gender equality
under the law for the good of all people.
Images of radical, male-bashing extremists
have long been used to give the wider scope of feminism a bad name.
The media and political leaders quote off-the-wall extremists in
order to generate the needless contention that they thrive on.
The feminist movement reached it heyday
during the Viet Nam War protests and the Hippie movement of the
1960s. All three were lumped together by the media and the fact
that there was some overlapping concern among proponents. Defenders
of the status quo took advantage of this hodge-podge of protest
to make sure that whatever truth they represented look radical.
This tainted feminism in the eyes of many, even today.
We would like to make clear that Chivalry-Now
has no connection with the free-love, drug-infested, anti-war movements
of the 60s and early 70s. We have no connection to those who represented
the status quo either. To illustrate, we provide the following summations:

There should
be no question that women and men are equal under the law, and
treated according to their individual value. If that is the feminist
agenda of today, we are in complete accord. Beyond that recognition,
the lives of women are their own. They are as responsible for
their own destinies as men are. We help assure their rights and
freedom, as they assure ours, through respect and harmonious relationships.

Love is an
important principle that we need to propagate. The so-called "free-love"
of the 60s and 70s, however, wasn't love at all - just a catch-phrase
for license and rebellion.

Drugs and
alcohol ruin people's lives, along with the lives of their loved
ones, and should be avoided as a rational, individual decision.
Intoxication always puts honor at risk.

Anti-war
movements often project a very shallow moral posture that blinds
participants to the consequences of what they espouse. When loud
contention replaces reason, it becomes counterproductive, furthering
the divide by solidifying factions.

On the other
hand, supporting war for the sake of nationalistic or so-called
"patriotic" pride disavows our responsibility as mature,
free-thinking, morally-patriotic citizens. War is not a high school
football game or business strategy. People die, while others commit
themselves to revenge. The reasons for a just war have to be exceptional.

Chivalry-Now
may seem difficult to judge because it harkens back to far earlier
times, while incorporating today's wisdom as well. When we speak
of love, peace and equal rights, our words are not rooted in the
turbulent 60s and 70s, but in the spirit likened to the Age of Reason,
from which freedom and democracy gained their precarious foothold.Chivalry-Now must never be an excuse
for ego satisfaction, or a ploy to attract women, or a cover for
other forms of license. Our integrity bears no alliance to liberalism
or conservatism, but only to truth and human compassion. We don't
seek power-hungry advocates, thrilled by the influence they hold
over their listeners. That's for television pulpits. We don't reduce
our principles to slogans that lose the true depth of their precious
meaning. That's for political consultants. We avoid all such tendencies
as variations of greed.
With all this in mind, we place preconceptions
aside and approach feminism from where we stand, with open minds
and hopeful hearts.I've
read blogs where men express contempt for feminism, and do
so in the name of chivalry! While harshly accusing the women's
movement of destroying chivalry, they say things like:
"if women want to be the equal of men they should "Such
words not only imply that women are not equal with men, but that
equality is something that can be earned if women only submit to
male judgment!Their
idea of equality makes no sense. Are all men equal among themselves?
Are all men strong and honest and self-disciplined? Do they all
labor to the best of their ability? Do they share the exact same
interests or political views? Of course not. Yet defenders of misogyny
build fictitious walls of homogeneity around the male gender, while
holding women to what amounts to higher standards.As
for destroying chivalry, what kind of chivalry is so easily destroyed?
Was it flourishing in the 1950s? Or 40s? Could a movement demanding
equal rights for women destroy male ethics, already built on equal
rights? Only men destroy that lineage of chivalry through decades
of neglect, propagated by the cultural migration of the Industrial
Revolution.We
all hold human differences. Some express themselves to varying degrees
in each gender, but not exclusively. We have masculine women, feminine
males, and a whole gamut of variations in between.If
we learn anything from the polarization of politics, it's that extreme
views propagate their opposite on the other side, each contending
outrageously instead of finding common ground. The extreme misogynist
and the man-hating feminist are both related and dependent upon
each other in this regard. They depend on each other for their blind
anger and discontent, while the rest of us shake our heads in remorse.